रघुनाथ ब्रह्मभट्ट

Raghunath Tribhuvandas Brahmbhatt (13 December 1892 – 11 July 1983) was a Gujarati poet, playwright, and lyricist, popularly known by the honorific "Rasakavi" ("poet of aesthetic sentiment/rasa"). Over a long career in Gujarati literature and theatre, he wrote more than 25 plays on mythological and historical themes and over a hundred songs for the stage, and in 1955 published Smaran-Manjari, a memoir chronicling the development of Gujarati theatre between 1910 and 1940; he was honoured by the Desi Natak Samaj in 1944 for his contribution to Gujarati drama.

Brahmbhatt's work also crossed into Hindi cinema, where he is credited as lyricist on a small number of films, including Do Deewane (1936), Baraat (1942), Mera Gaon (1942), Ashirwad (1943), Bhakta Bilwamangal (1948), and Roop Sundari (1949).

He is best remembered in Hindi film history for "Mohe Panghat Pe Nandlal Chhed Gayo Re," the celebrated song from Mughal-e-Azam (1960), credited on screen to Shakeel Badayuni. Brahmbhatt had originally written the verse decades earlier for the 1920 Gujarati play Chhatra Vijay; after he raised the matter with the Film Writers' Association, he was awarded compensation of Rs 11,000 as royalty, and he was formally acknowledged as the song's original author in the colour re-release of Mughal-e-Azam in 2004.